


Movie Night

by the_afterlight



Category: Power Rangers Jungle Fury
Genre: Multi, gen-ish with a side of ship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-11
Updated: 2009-12-11
Packaged: 2017-10-04 08:39:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_afterlight/pseuds/the_afterlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A little team-building goes a long way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Movie Night

**Author's Note:**

> Un-beta'd. Written for the [puppy-piling meme](http://starandrea.livejournal.com/514342.html?mode=reply).

RJ couldn't remember when last he'd had a movie night.

Well, okay, he could at least remember that it was before Dai Shi had been released, before he ended up with three overenthusiastic students -- one of them a _cub_, seriously, what was Master Mao _thinking_. Three students, a new employee -- and hadn't Marcus and Alicia been surprised when they came back from vacation -- and, now, an old friend. All living under one roof. His roof.

Admittedly, Fran didn't _actually_ live there, but she might as well, with all the time she spent there.

But yes. It had been so long since he'd actually sat down to watch a movie that he'd decided that tonight was the night. He pulled the projector screen out of storage, angled it in the corner like he usually did. Hooked up the projector and the DVD player. Eyed his usual movie-watching beanbag chair.

"That won't do."

"What won't do?" Fran asked, as she came up the stairs. "Oh, are you doing a slide show? I haven't watched one of those in ages! Or, is this some kind of special Pai Zhua training thing that I can't take part in?"

RJ blinked, and frowned; he hadn't realised that Fran was feeling that separate from the rest of the team, but she sounded so _dejected_ there. "Actually, no," he said. "It's for all of us. You, too. We're going to leave Alicia and Marcus to mind the shop while the rest of us have a movie night."

"Oh! I _love_ movies! Especially movies with _romance_! What are we watching tonight?"

"I hadn't decided yet, actually," RJ admitted. "In fact, I thought we'd decide when everyone's together."

"Decide what?" Dom asked, as he crested the stairs, followed by Theo, Lily, and Casey. RJ felt a warm smile tug at his lips as he saw Casey, but quickly suppressed it -- that was an emotion for another time. "Oh, hey, are we watching something?"

RJ nodded. "Movie night," he said. "Team building exercise." He grinned. "We only get to watch when _everyone_ is channeling their animal spirit."

A disappointed sound came from Fran. "... Oh," she said. "I thought you said -- I'll go down with Marcus and Alicia, then."

"Just tell them that they've got the shop to themselves tonight," RJ told her, with a grin. "Like I said, it's a team building exercise. Which means the _entire_ team."

RJ got several looks for that: shocked from Theo, and appreciation from Lily; ecstatic from Dom (and wasn't _that_ interesting, RJ thought, if not exactly surprising), and approval from Casey. The best, though, was the look that Fran gave him as that processed. "You mean... you want to _train_ me?" she asked.

"Why not?" RJ said. "You're a part of the team, as much as anyone else. I may not be able to make you a Ranger, too, but you're still one of us." He grinned at the team leader. "Right, Casey?"

As if it had been planned -- although, in fact, it hadn't been, and it made RJ wonder exactly how well Casey was getting to know him -- Casey nodded, and pulled a box out from behind RJ's chair. "Exactly," he said. "Which is why, Fran..." He handed the box over. "We got this made for you."

"_We?_" RJ mouthed at Casey, over Fran's shoulder, as she took the box. Casey just grinned and shrugged.

"Oh, this is..." Fran stared at the pink Pai Zhua jacket. "This is... no one's _ever_ done anything like this for me!" She pulled it on -- it fit perfectly. Just as RJ had expected it would; there was a reason that he was the mentor -- and that Casey was the leader.

"C'mon," he said. "Go tell Marcus and Alicia to mind the store, and we'll get started."

***

 

The distraction of the movie equipment, it seemed, was enough to set even the most experienced of his team off their game -- Dom was having the most difficulty out of all of them channeling his rhino spirit (although RJ expected that might have to do with someone else present), and Theo, too, seemed quite distracted. Lily, of course, with the way she was constantly in contact with her spirit, had it fully channeled in seconds, and it was prowling around her as she grinned, batting playfully at Casey's fully-manifested tiger spirit.

Fran... Fran was another question. He'd suspected for quite some time now that she'd be a good match for this, and he wasn't surprised at all when he started to see flickers around her: her animal spirit, reacting to the presence of the other manifest spirits around her. "That's it," he said, guiding her through the meditation. "Now, reach out with your heart. She's right there with you..."

"He," Fran interrupted, although her eyes remained closed. "He's a he." Fran's eyes shot open. "He's a he! I can feel him!"

The rhino appeared around Dom at that point, as he opened his eyes, and Theo's jaguar wasn't far behind. RJ could feel the wolf getting restless, ready to come out and play, but he kept a firm grip on it for the moment. "You know what to do next," he said, holding Fran's gaze. "There's nothing I can tell you to explain it to you."

Fran nodded, a bit vaguely at first, and then more firmly. As the sparks around her increased, coming up into a whirl, the other animal spirits came over, sniffing, learning what they could about this newcomer. "He's here!" Fran said, and, indeed, the flickers coalesced into her spirit: a blue jay. Who clashed horribly with her new pink jacket, but RJ rather thought she'd like it.

"And that's it, everyone," he said. "Pull them back, but keep them active -- it's movie time!"

It was like shrugging into a jacket, he'd always thought, and when he'd been training Casey, early on, the student had said the same thing. Fran seemed to take to it instinctively, as her spirit melded with her; he could still feel it present, though, the same way he felt the spirits of his students, of his friends. The wolf bounded forward within him, panting playfully, and he grinned as he let it come forward just enough. "Hey, RJ," Casey said, and he turned, all his wolf instincts bristling, but not fast enough -- the tiger cub pounced him, knocking him back onto his beanbag chair. The others followed suit: Lily and Theo bounding over like the cats they were, Dominic rumbling in behind with all the force of a rhino. Fran held back a bit, almost as if unsure, but RJ just pulled a hand free and waved her over. "C'mon," he said. "We might as well all just share this. It's the only beanbag chair I have, anyway."

So, there they all were, curling up together on the one chair, when Theo spoke up.

"Uh, RJ?" he asked. "... Do you have the remotes?"


End file.
